- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Summary
Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, 95, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead in their New Mexico home, authorities confirmed Thursday.
Foul play is not suspected, but an investigation is ongoing.
Hackman, a revered actor known for The French Connection and Unforgiven, retired from Hollywood two decades ago and spent his later years writing novels.
He lived in New Mexico since the 1980s, remaining largely out of the public eye. His death comes just days before this year’s Academy Awards.
Gas is nice for some things, but for heating a brand new heat pump is best.
Actually, the one thing that gas is good for is cooking, but induction is far better. So yeah. No real need for gas to the home.
Adding on to what @Delta_V@lemmy.world said. The main reason that cooking with gas indoors is a very bad idea, is “natural gas” isn’t just methane. The oil companies just pull the gas, and whatever may be with it, out of the ground, refine it somewhat to remove some things, like water that would rust their gas lines, and send it down the pipes.
They don’t process it further, however, leaving nasty stuff like benzene in it, as one summary hilariously put it, “Ultra-pure methane isn’t necessary for home use. The gas needs to be clean enough for safe combustion and pipeline transport, but further refinement isn’t economically justified.”
So they clean it enough that their infrastructure doesn’t degrade, but not enough to be safe to humans.
If you’ve ever cleaned the igniter or parts of the combustion chamber of a NG product, even one with hyper-efficient burners, it’s a wonder they filter it all, given how much crap builds up.
Bonus points as well: to maintain pressure regulation, every gas meter will vent methane periodically (as well as other places in the distribution network), so they’re venting a greenhouse gas that is worse than carbon dioxide, collectively in tiny amounts, from millions of homes.
Gas has been used in homes since the early 1800s, its time has passed, and it should go away.
Induction isn’t far better for cooking. It’s better for cooking on a flat surface of the appropriate (small) size. It’s bad for cooking with large pans (especially cast iron). It’s bad for cooking with curved surfaces (such as woks). It’s also bad for cooking with non-ferrous materials such as copper and aluminum (it doesn’t work at all for these), so high end copper French saucepans are off the table.
Yes I’m aware of the existence of induction wok hobs. They’re neat but they only work well with a wok of the correct size and shape (otherwise the wok either wobbles around or doesn’t fit) and they’re not very powerful with North American 120V mains power. They also come with a crappy nonstick PFAS wok so you end up buying a separate carbon steel wok anyway.
And none of these will work with a large wok!
I use a big Lodge cast iron pan on my induction stove, and it works fine.
Woks are a trick, though. They were designed with the idea that a flame would flow around them, and that’s just how it is.
So you’re telling me you’ve only ever used shitty, low budget induction. Likely only ever used the countertop plug in units.
An actual induction stove is much better than that.
They are a dream to cook on, they have all the speed of gas, but none of the side spill heat. All the heat is concentrated in the pan itself.
Woks do have issues due to their shape. And those issues crop up with any western style stove. So who cares. There are eastern style induction stoves, they’re more expensive but work fairly well.
Or you can buy a cheap countertop unit and pretend that its the best induction can be.
Side spill heat is the whole point. It lets you cook with the sides of the pan while turning, tossing, tilting, basting, flambe, and wokhei. It’s essential to Jacques Pepin’s French omelette technique. It’s essential to basting eggs or meat while pan frying. You need to tilt the pan to gather the fat to one side. If you do that with induction the power shuts off. Sure you can baste with a pan laying flat but that means you need to use way more fat.
It’s also the magic property of gas that makes it flexible enough to work with very large pans. Try using a 14” cast iron pan on your high end induction stove. You’re going to get a hot spot in the middle and cold sides where food will stick and make a mess.
Does your high end induction cooktop have a wok hob? As far as I know, the only ones you can get for woks are countertop models.
Another advantage to gas I didn’t mention: you can cook directly over the flame without any pan at all! This technique is perfect for charring peppers, tortillas, naan, and other dry items you can hold with tongs.
Not to mention that most induction tops are made from glass which can shatter if you’re too rough with it. And I am a violent chef when it comes to stovetop mixing/tossing
Yes especially if you’re handling a very heavy cast iron pan, stock pot, or Dutch oven. I would not want to make a commercial stock pot sized batch of stock on any sort of glass flat top, induction or otherwise.
Only if your kitchen is adequately vented, but most that I’ve seen are not.
A modern gas furnace or water heater will have a flue, and if the system has been installed properly then exhaust gasses, including CO, will get sucked out of the house.
Most gas ovens/ranges are unvented - they just spew combustion products, including CO, directly into the home. Its so bad that the 1st generation of CO detectors had to be retired because they were constantly going off when people would cook dinner. Modern CO detectors will only be set off if detected CO levels remain elevated for some number of hours.
Cooking with gas in a home that lacks a large hood fan that’s ducted to the outdoors is a terrible idea.
I have a heat pump in Wisconsin along with solar panels on the roof. Getting by on that alone would be completely nuts. Winter is exactly the time when a heat pump is not only straining to work, but also the time when solar panels can’t do their job very well. While it could hypothetically be augmented with electric resistive heating, that would end up with very high bills in the winter, and the power for it would come predominantly from fossil fuel sources, anyway. Might as well burn a fossil fuel for heat directly.
It’s certainly worthwhile, but it’s not feasible as the only heat source for much of the US.
We have an induction stove already. I’d like to replace the water heater with a hybrid electric model. At that point, the furnace will be the only use of natural gas in the house, and that only when it’s strictly needed.
Did I say you had to rely on Solar for your electricity in the winter? No? And remember I said brand new heat pump. The newest models can work in much colder temps.
Also, if you’re in Wisconsin, you might be getting your power from nuclear (about 16% of the State’s power production). Which is far better than fossil fuels.
I have a very new heat pump. I’m quite aware of the improvements and made this choice for a reason.
No, you can’t run them alone here, not even the new ones. In fact, the permit department here won’t even allow it.